


The Great Lavvyan Coyote Hunt

by Gozer



Series: Tiny Tales Universe [4]
Category: Stargate - All Series, Stargate Atlantis, Stargate SG-1
Genre: Angst and Humor, Backstory, Gen, Humor, Hunters & Hunting, Slice of Life, Team as Family, thinky
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-28
Updated: 2014-11-28
Packaged: 2018-02-27 06:44:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,743
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2683082
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gozer/pseuds/Gozer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>Life is living the stories that you tell later.</i>
</p><p> </p><p>The three greatest warriors in two (or possibly three) galaxies go on vacation together, with a bonus walk down memory lane for John.  Hijinks and high angst ensue.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Great Lavvyan Coyote Hunt

**Author's Note:**

  * For [lavvyan](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lavvyan/gifts), [kensieg](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kensieg/gifts).



> I came up with this story as a birthday gift for lavvyan in 2008, though it was little more than a hurried outline at the time, posted on a Live Journal her friend kensieg put together for the occasion, called [broomsxhandles](http://www.community.livejournal.com/broomsxhandles). That was six years ago. Sorry this took so damned long to finish, lavvyan! You are one of the most inventive, creative writers I’ve ever had the pleasure to read—you come up with great ideas that are so out there, they probably shouldn’t work, but they always do, and then you generously allow other people to play in the universes you’ve created. I hope you’re not entirely over Stargate at this point and can still enjoy reading this story. Thank you for everything you’ve written for us. Any fandom that captures your attention is a lucky fandom indeed.
> 
> UNBETA’D, as I wanted to get this posted on lavvyan’s birthday; please feel free to give me concrit or corrections.
> 
> Please see the After Notes for warnings if you know you’re sensitive about anything.

**The Great Lavvyan Coyote Hunt**

By Teenygozer

 

"Fiji is near Nigeria, right?"

A simple question, but John knew from bitter experience that you had to watch what you said in front of people from another planet. Like the time Elizabeth revealed over lunch she’d been tied to a chair and blind-folded when making that deal with the Genii for their nuclear warheads, and he’d quipped that she was probably the only diplomat in two galaxies who needed a safe word. It was as if every non-Earth native in the mess hall had suddenly tuned into the conversation; they all wanted to know what a safe word was, how they could get one, and what form of protection the word would give them. As nice as it had been to see a glint of mischief in Elizabeth’s eyes again, he’d still wished he’d kept his damn mouth shut.

So, yeah, he knew to field even the most innocuous non-Terran query with the greatest of care, because you never knew where it had come from or where it might lead you.

“Um, wanna give me some background on the geography question, buddy?”

Ronon lifted a noncommittal shoulder and ran his spork half-heartedly through his blue Jell-O. "Nigeria is an interesting place." For a kick-ass alien warrior, Ronon did one hell of an emo-kid imitation.

"…but your passport says _The Republic of the Fiji Islands_ ," John prodded. With Ronon, fishing for info was the only way to go. Ask directly at this point, you’d just get a grunt to go along with the half-shoulder-shrug.

When the time had come to phony-up some Earth-side paperwork for Ronon, he'd picked Fiji because, along with Christine Kochanski, the Fiji Islands had featured as Lister's object of desire on Ronon's favorite situation comedy, _Red Dwarf_. About mid-way through the third season, John had come to realize that Ronon thought the show was based on a true story, but had, for reasons even he himself couldn't fathom, never bothered to set Ronon straight. "Fun, fun, fun; in the sun, sun, sun," was all John had said while filling out the SGC paperwork and, at the time, Ronon had been down with Fiji. Apparently not so much now.

"Too late to change it, I guess," muttered Ronon, still torturing the Jell-O into submission.

"They're _real_ close," said John. "Practically spitting distance."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah!"

Relatively speaking, the Fiji Islands and Nigeria were a heck of a lot closer to one another than, say, the planet Earth and the Pegasus galaxy, so it wasn't a lie. Not really. If Ronon wanted Fiji to be near Nigeria, so be it.

* * *

After landing in San Francisco Bay, Atlantis’ stargate, being the more technologically advanced gate by thousands of years, had taken precedence as default Earth gate over Colorado’s stargate. Instead of pulling Atlantis’ gate crystal, the SGC had decided to take advantage of the situation to get some structural expansion done on its underground Colorado headquarters and had set up temporary shop in the upper tiers of Building 3, out on Pier D. As a result, people from all over the Milky Way galaxy had been dropping by all week.

It was kind of awesome when SGC teams, or the occasional alien dignitary, emerged from the blue-water effect of the event horizon to find themselves, not in a cold gray concrete bunker under NORAD as expected, but in the airy town square of Atlantis’ gate room, a warm California breeze wafting in from the doors that opened out onto the balcony. Like Disney characters experiencing their first taste of cartoon magic; their eyes widened in delight and their mouths dropped open as they slowly turned in circles, taking it all in: the elegantly vaulted ceilings, the sweeping staircases, the tall and magnificent stained-glass windows. Even the intermittent presence of General Landry couldn’t subdue John’s house-proud glow for long.

John was still a bit surprised to find Teal’c sharing a breakfast table with Ronon out on the balcony that John liked to refer to as the “Lido Deck.” He dropped his tray on the table with a clatter and pulled out a chair; and as the tray dropped so did the other shoe. “Teal’c!” he said by way of greeting. “Would I be correct in assuming that your Earth passport indicates you’re from Nigeria?”

“You would be correct in that assumption, ColonelJohnSheppard,” Teal’c nodded.

Ronon grinned his “so you busted me, screw you” grin.

John sniffed his real-chicken-egg omelet with appreciation and dug in. After a few bites, he said, “Ronon here’s passport says he’s from the Fiji Islands.” He spared a glance at Ronon, then decided to go for broke, adding, “You know, Fiji is real close to Nigeria.”

Teal’c looked mildly dyspeptic at this news. “I believe you are incorrect in your estimation, ColonelJohnSheppard. The Islands of Fiji are situated some 18,000 klicks from the country of Nigeria. One might consider that a substantial distance.”

Ronon raised an eyebrow at John and John smirked his “so you busted me, screw you” smirk right back at him, then changed the subject.

“Aaanyway. Hey, Ronon; Woolsey told me Landry gave me clearance to take you on that trip to the beach we were talking about. His exact words were: ‘Colonel, you can go away now,’ so we’re good to go anytime; later today even.”

Ronon looked grim, and his eyes shifted to Teal’c, sitting silent and dignified, for the barest moment, which took John aback. He could tell something significant was going on, and despite the fact that he was talking to the two most taciturn beings currently on-planet, it didn’t take a lot of questions to get the story. To his credit, Ronon managed to keep the fan-girly whine out of his voice while telling the tale. Mostly.

It seemed that despite Teal’c’s ten-for-ten record in defending the planet Earth from various Milky Way bad guys, a small but potent platoon of Wraith, and the super-great-grandmother-of-all-bad guys, the Ori, he wasn’t allowed out from under the mountain except on a (very short) SGC leash. Didn’t John agree this was unfair, not to mention ungrateful? True, there had been problems, but never Teal’c’s fault. Problems including the NID and/or Trust targeting Teal’c whenever he tried to go walkies unaccompanied as well as a number of (unsurprisingly one-sided) fist-fights due to being something of a trouble-magnet.

“I think if you see a bunch of guys beating up on some little guy, nothin’ wrong with busting a few heads,” Ronon said with a Q.E.D. gesture. Teal’c seemed to agree. To be honest, so did John.

“So I’m guessing you want to invite Teal’c along on our vacation, to show him a little bit of the planet he’s been doing such a bang-up job of defending?” John basked in the silent approval coming at him from across the table for a moment, then assumed his much-hated soccer-mom persona, saying, “Ronon, that’s a really cool idea, but you know Teal’c’s a busy man. He’s probably here to for a meeting with the IOA or the general, or maybe he’s got something going on off-planet that he needs to take care of.”

“Not at all, ColonelJohnSheppard; my business here with General Landry is done and I am not expected anywhere in the galaxy for the next several days. I would be most happy to accompany two of the finest warriors of my acquaintance on a quest for ‘some sun and sand’, particularly as Ronon has assured me that there would be no fishing involved.”

“No fishing, got it,” John said. He eyed Teal’c. “We’re gonna need a bigger surfboard.”

Ronon held up his hand and Teal’c obligingly high-fived him, which John had to admit was pretty freakin’ hilarious, but he kept a straight face and added, “Just let me just run this past the general. Don’t you guys send out any spam emails while I’m gone, y’hear?”

* * *

John had been pretty sure there wouldn’t be any blow-back from the addition of Teal’c to their vacation plans coming from General Landry’s quarter; Teal’c pretty much had Landry wrapped around his little finger just from his recent taking-down-the-Ori escapades alone. What John hadn’t expected was Landry’s over-the-top enthusiasm for the idea. For some reason Landry thought Teal'c was just the guy to keep an eye on John and Ronon, whom he evidently did not trust, and he kept going on and on about what a steadying influence he thought Teal’c would be on them both. This rankled just a little bit because, should it all end in tears, John knew damned well who’d be getting the blame for it, and it wasn’t the elder statesman.

“Teal’c will be so pleased to hear that you said ‘yes,’ sir,” and one fake smile and salute later, and he was out of there.

He was _so_ having Building 3 fumigated after the SGC left.

* * *

When John had come up with his brilliant vacation plans earlier that week, he’d been holed up in his office with only his computer for company, screwing around on the internet; it being something of a novelty to be able to screw around on the internet in his office on Atlantis. Woolsey had been poking his head in all week, dropping heavy-handed hints that John ought to take advantage of their enforced down time floating around in San Francisco Bay—just get off his ass, take some leave and go out and _do_ something—because obviously Woolsey was going to make somebody a wonderful mother some day.

Rodney had taken off to visit Jeannie several days earlier, which had prompted John to likewise take a page out of the _How To Be A Good Brother_ handbook and call Davy. Sadly, that hadn’t worked out: _“We’ve got a merger going in Germany and a new line of Green Energy products that we’re breaking out in Europe over the next few weeks and, well, I’m on a flight to London in half an hour. I’m afraid I just can’t drop everything to see you, John, much as I might want to. It would have been nice if you had given us some warning.”_ …and damned if that wasn’t a flashback to conversations he’d had with Patrick Sheppard on more than one occasion.

A bit depressed and at a loss for what to do, John had been Google-mapping some of his old haunts—wow, the “street view” function was even cooler than the view-by-satellite function, especially once you’d seen that view live and standing on the bridge of an actual satellite.

It looked like his favorite Chinese restaurant in Manhattan had been replaced by a new French restaurant, but the family-owned sub shop across the street was still there. His alma mater’s campus hadn’t changed much, except it seemed an army of shiny new recycling bins had invaded. Reaching for an even earlier memory, he realized he couldn’t find his Aunt Sally’s house in the sleepy little tourist town of Lavvyan, California.

John had loved living in Lavvyan with his mother’s sister, Sally, after his mom had passed away, once it had become evident that he and his father were going to fucking kill one another if they continued to share a house. He’d initially been shipped off to spend the summer with Aunt Sally at her charmingly middle-class home in a shabby-chic section of the town as punishment, but the visit had stretched and he’d graduated from Lavvyan High two years later. He’d been nothing less than ecstatic to escape the beautifully-kept prison his father’s home had become, even if it meant he couldn’t ride anymore. He’d missed his horse but he’d learned to surf instead.

The house was definitely gone. He found where it should have been; there was construction going on down the street from a house he recognized as old Mrs. Creighton’s house—it looked like someone had torn Aunt Sally’s house down and was in the process of throwing up a McMansion, building almost to the edge of the property instead of flanking the house with a front garden and a backyard. The new house had a downstairs garage, and it looked like the detached garage in back had also been torn down. _Tacky_ , sniffed John, who immediately grimaced when he realized the voice in his head was Patrick Sheppard’s.

He clicked arrows on the screen until he reached Lavvyan’s town square. There was a real estate office right there in the square, he could actually read the sign in the window advertising _Summer Home Rental, Call (310) 555-1334_ ; awesome!

John pulled the SGC-assigned cell phone out of his pocket and punched up the number.

* * *

The house John rented was even closer to the ocean than his aunt’s house and frankly much nicer, but opening the front door and throwing his bag down in the hallway still felt like coming home. The same green hills rose up to a clear, blue sky at the front of the house, the same expanse of white sand and blue ocean beckoned from the back porch.

Ronon and “Murray”—John was pretty sure General Jack "Batshit Crazy" O'Neill had something to do with that very non-Nigerian name—followed him into the house and dropped their suitcases, purchased in San Francisco along with some super-double-extra-large tee shirts, jeans, and surf shorts. John grinned—was he or was he not the coolest dude on the planet, hanging out with the two greatest warriors in two or possibly three galaxies?

“Where’s the kitchen,” Ronon said, more a demand than a question.

John shrugged ‘how should I know?’ and Ronon went investigating. “There’s not gonna be any food in there until we go out and buy it!” he called after Ronon’s disappearing back.

There was an uncomfortable non-conversational moment during which John realized he didn’t know what the heck to say to the Jaffa warrior standing next to him in the hall, then, “Dibs on the bedroom with the ocean view!” John grabbed his bag and sprinted up the stairs to check out the second floor.

Two of the bedrooms looked out over the beach; John picked one and tossed his bag on the bed. The view was incredible… almost as good as the view from his office! Looking down at the backyard, he saw, as promised by the rental agency, a huge brick grill, giving him a great idea for that evening’s main vacation event: he would demonstrate to his alien-warrior buddies—to his _posse_!—the good old-fashioned American art of barbequing.

Once they’d settled in, John waved his car-keys and said, “Let’s go shopping.”

The rustic butcher shop John’s aunt had patronized was still there, sort of; it had been updated to an all-organic, pesticide-and-hormone-free artisan butcher shop. The prices were a lot higher, too; John barely stopped himself from launching into an old granddad-style rant in time. He wasn’t gonna turn into the guy waving his walking stick and yelling at kids to get off his lawn if he could help it—and what did John care anyway? He had a credit card and he wasn’t afraid to use it. He set about buying some awesome fifty-dollar-a-pop, grass-fed steaks, some racks of ribs, a rasher of Canadian bacon, and a couple of free-range chickens that were spinning on the rotisserie and smelled heavenly, to keep Ronon quiet in the car. He figured that would tide his posse over for at least one night and breakfast, while the posse in question gravitated over to the back of the store. He kept sneaking peeks at them, keeping tabs, as they checked out what looked a bit like, from John’s perspective at the front counter, a large and creepy torture device.

“What, uh, what is that thing my friends are looking at?” John asked in an off-hand manner as he signed the credit slip.

The butcher’s face lit up with such unholy enthusiasm that John took a step back in dismay. It reminded him of some of the more religious-type Pegasus natives’ reactions when they saw him activate an Ancient device.

Apparently the _ennui_ of a traditional clam bake had begun to weigh upon the local glitterati, so the latest fad among people-in-the-know was the purchase of an entire side of beef for roasting as the main event of a beach party. The creepy torture device in question was a rotisserie apparatus, which the butcher indicated he would happily rent to them upon purchase of a half-a-cow, so they didn’t even have to fell any trees to spit the beef on. He had a whole kit ready to go, including fuel for the fire and a “how-to” booklet of detailed instructions. The butcher was a man with a mission: to spread the joy of spit-roasting a side of beef in the manner that our American forefathers, or possibly Neanderthals, had done, pre-packaged for his customers’ convenience.

Unfortunately, John’s posse shared the butcher’s excitement. They thought it would be the coolest thing ever to roast a half a cow on a spit on the beach, which both Ronon and "Murray" insisted they already knew how to do anyway. John felt bad about having to throw a monkey-wrench into such an enthusiastically revved-up machine, but c’mon— _half a cow! HALF A COW!_ —so he said, “It’s just the three of us, who’s gonna eat an entire side of beef?”

Teal’c tilted his head, which John interpreted as, “You have a point, young whippersnapper, but I strongly suggest you phrase your objections more respectfully in future.”

Ronon, playing the role of bratty baby brother to the hilt, just got more insistent. “We could throw a party!”

“But we don’t know anyone!” John stopped right there and bit his lip. He actually did know people in Lavvyan, he just wasn’t sure he wanted to stir up that pot. Re-forging connections meant having to answer well-meaning questions like, “So, what have you been doing for the past twenty years or so?” and John wasn’t sure he had enough material he was willing or able to share to make a credible answer.

“Tell you what,” John said, “You guys find enough people willing to eat a half a cow with us and we’ll rent this thing and get that party started.”

Ha! That was, like, a good fifty, sixty people—they’d never round up that many people in only a few days of vacation. “C’mon, we have to hit the farmer’s market and a liquor store. I have a feeling I’m gonna need a lot of beer.”

An hour later found them back at the rental house, his posse making with the karate moves on the backyard lawn and a good dozen women (and half again as many men) making transparent excuses to hang around the fence because Ronon and "Murray" were sparring with their shirts off.

John was currently and for the near future refusing to spar with Ronon. When they’d mixed it up a bit earlier, it was pretty obvious Ronon was showing off for Teal'c because he proceeded to beat John to a pulp for no reason whatsoever. _Dammit, Ronon! I'm on fucking vacation here!_ had only spurred Ronon on to further heights of sneaky low-blows. Since John wasn’t interested in adding to his body-scar collection, he finally threw his hands up and backed away from a sneering Ronon slowly.

“Kick his ass!” he instructed Teal’c, who answered, “I shall endeavor to do so, ColonelJohnSheppard.”

Half asleep, John made himself comfortable, sacked out on a deck chair in surfer trunks and aviator sunglasses, a delightfully cold beer resting on his belly, while his two guests sparred and the fan club hanging over the fence _ooh’d_ and _aaah’d_ appreciatively.

Returning to full consciousness a half-hour later, John stretched and yawned and found that, in between killing blows, his posse had invited the fan club over for a party tomorrow night, and the many, many women (and more than a few men) hanging over the fence had enthusiastically agreed to show up and bring all their friends.

John caved, like you do, and called the artisan butcher.

* * *

John was busy hovering over the fifty-dollar tenderloins on the grill when he found out that Teal’c thought John hadn’t wanted to do the rotisserie half-cow thing because he was squeamish.

“In my experience, the Tau’ri prefer their foods highly processed and anonymous. They have no apprehension of their food’s origin as a living animal, and do not want to know.” He and Ronon were unfolding a teak picnic table they’d found in the garden shed, knocking the legs into place with a _thunk._

“Y’know, most people don’t eat MREs out here in the big, real world,” John said, feeling the need to defend his culture, even if he sort of agreed with Teal’c. “In fact, when I was a little kid, we spent every summer on my granddad’s ranch. I used to help him with his chores every morning....”

John remembered coming suddenly awake, blinking eyes that could barely see in the pitch-dark of pre-dawn, his grandfather’s voice on the other side of the door, calling out, _“Up and at’em, Johnny-boy! Up and at’em! Time to kill the turkeys!”_

_“Time to what the what?”_

He was only seven or eight and the turkeys were huge; two dozen turkeys and they were all bigger than he was! It was his job to grab them and bring them over to the chopping block, but instead, the turkeys had dragged him all over the place. It was only by gritting his teeth with sheer determination that he somehow managed to overpower them, one by one, and get them to his grandfather, who waited by the block with his big hatchet.

“So then, well, then we killed all the turkeys.” John poked at the steaks on the grill in front of him without seeing them. “Man, I couldn’t get the smell out of my head for a long time. Couldn’t eat turkey for years.”

Due to the stench of blood and hot, dusty feathers, John hadn’t eaten turkey again until... huh, until he moved to Lavvyan as a teenager, when deli turkey became John’s favorite sandwich.

“And so, ColonelJohnSheppard, you have proven my point for me.” Teal’c was obviously trying to be polite, but it was also obvious he felt John was kind of a wuss to have stopped eating turkey once he’d seen how the birds had to be butchered to make them into the food that showed up on his plate.

“It was the smell! It was really bad!” John protested feebly.

Ronon naturally took Teal’c’s side: “Dunno Sheppard; kinda hard to tell what animal it came from when it’s sliced thin between two pieces of bread.” John flipped him off, because he could.

His grandfather had been a big man, broad-chested like his father and Davy, not skinny like John. John had taken after his mother’s side of the family. He had a memory of his mother and his Aunt Sally giggling and swinging their rackets on a tennis court, slim and athletic, both built more along the lines of his own runner’s body.

Ronon said, “Your grandfather didn’t wake up your brother to kill the turkeys, too?” Having met John’s brother, for some reason Ronon was forever interested in the David aspect of any childhood story John might share. Ronon was getting to be quite the stalker, which is not easy to do from another galaxy.

John shrugged, pulling the medium-rare steaks off the grill and onto plates before they tipped over into medium-well. “Davy was never much for working on the farm.”

John had been his grandfather’s favorite. Davy always felt that, as the eldest grandson, he deserved to be the favorite, so he refused to help out on the ranch. John could never figure out what the hell Davy’s problem was; after all, he was obviously dad’s favorite. Why did he have to be everyone’s goddamn favorite? John had been devastated when the old man died, but he couldn’t remember if Davy had cried even once. He must have, just not when John was around.

“Steak’s up!” John turned to find his posse seated behind paper plates at the picnic table, knives and forks at the ready. “You start on these; I’ll get the ribs out of the marinade.”

* * *

They woke from their protein-and-beer coma the next day to the insistent ringing of the bell at the front door. Apparently dead-cow delivery was at crack-of-dawn o’clock because when you roast half a cow on a spit, it takes hours, and the party was supposed to start 4:00PM-ish.

The two guys unloaded the rotisserie from their truck and helped them hook up the motor to the spit with a belt, then wheeled it and the side of beef down to the beach, but Ronon and Teal’c insisted they knew how to mount the beef on the spit, so the delivery guys left them to it with a jaunty “your problem, not ours” wave.

John sipped his orange juice, watching Ronon and Teal’c bicker. “I’ll go start breakfast and leave you guys to it, shall I?” he said, saluting them with the glass. Much to his amusement, they ignored him and continued fussing. John smiled into his glass.

They were poring over the spit apparatus and trying to get the motor started when a voice rang out in the distance yelling for help. John dropped his juice in the sand and took off. Naturally, being well-trained SGC personnel, they all ran towards the screams instead of sensibly away.

Up by the road in front of the house, an old woman with a cane yanked on the jeweled leash of a tiny, yapping Pekinese with more balls than brains. The dog waved its tiny paws in the air aggressively, trying to get at a rangy, flea-bitten coyote, hot to teach it a lesson. Of course the coyote thought that was hilarious. It licked its chops and was moving in for the kill while the old lady dropped her cane to grab the leash with both hands, wobbly on her high-heeled, strappy sandals.

Ronon grabbed her as she tripped and fell, letting go of the leash. John stomped on the lead as it flashed past, pulling the Peke up short, its little back paws flying up in the air as it was yanked off its tiny feet, then grabbed it up just before it regained its footing to launch itself at the coyote again. Teal’c was the only one with foresight enough to have brought a piece of the spit apparatus with him and he swung it at the coyote. No fool, the coyote took off.

And that’s how they found themselves with Mrs. Violette Smythe-McCallan's undying gratitude for their heroic rescue of Princess Butterpat IV—blue-ribbon winner of the Miami Dog Show in Best of Breed (Miniature) three year’s running—from being snacked on by a terrifying and vicious coyote. Eying them up and down, she said in a smoker’s voice, "Call me McSmitty, boys, all my friends do!"

McSmitty’s friends, a good half-dozen elderly ladies and one elderly gentleman, came stomping up in the sand, their own small-to-medium-sized dogs in tow. Apparently they’d all seen it go down but had been too far away to do anything about it. They complained that this wasn’t the first coyote who tried to grab a snack off a leash; apparently a very brazen pack of coyotes had been coming down from the hills with greater and greater frequency, and they’d made quite a successful run of it. They’d scored a Papillion, a Yorkie, and a Siamese cat from someone’s porch in the past three weeks alone. The police had been complained to, but so far hadn’t done anything about it.

Ronon and “Murray” were incensed and immediately declared their intention to go on a quest to kick coyote butt and avenge the lost pets. The old ladies (and one elderly gentleman) cheered, their dogs sniffing and darting at one another, pulling at the ends of their leashes like a bunch of helium balloons in a windstorm.

And so, once again, John found himself assuming his much-hated soccer-mom persona as he tried to rein his posse in, forbidding them to go on a coyote hunt, his exact words being: _You can't… because I said so!_

The old ladies (and one elderly gentleman) immediately gave him the stink-eye, then one of the tiniest and most wrinkled of the ladies began to weep softly into a Kleenex she’d had tucked into her bra strap. The guilt was crippling, but John stood fast.

Ronon and “Murray” stared at John self-righteously; trying to make him feel even guiltier, which John did not think was possible under the circumstances.

Now, if John had to be honest, he’d admit that the best episode of _COPS_ ever would feature Teal'c and Ronon in the hills of California hunting coyotes with foot-long machetes, but he suspected General Landry might disagree, so he stood firm in his declaration that a coyote hunt would be A Very Bad Idea, even with McSmitty and her posse crying all over the place and Teal'c and Ronon staring at him in manly, passive-aggressive, disapproval. To a certain extent, they were successful, but only in terms of ramping up John’s guilt, not with regard to breaking his resolve.

“Let’s get back to that huge hunk of beef we left lying on the beach unattended, shall we?” John turned his back on the lot of them and tramped back to the house, feeling their eyes boring into his back. It was tough being Military Commander of Atlantis base, but that was a cakewalk compared to this.

* * *

As they dug the fire pit and situated the rotisserie properly in the sand, John reiterated his desire more than once that they give up on the idea of a coyote hunt. Sadly, Teal’c and Ronon continued to not take him seriously, shooting him looks. Finally he threw his hands in the air and stalked into the house to make breakfast.

After setting the beef spinning over a roaring flame; Teal’c and Ronon dragged the picnic table and chairs from the back yard, arranging them up wind of the fire pit, and John brought out breakfast. They sat in the sun, a sea breeze keeping them cool as they enjoyed their Canadian bacon-and-eggs-and-steak.

As they enjoyed the breakfast he’d made for them, his posse never _quite_ admitted they were planning on going out into the hills to take care of the vermin problem, but every now and again, one of them would innocently ask John if coyotes made good eating or if their hides could be tanned into a passable leather for boots. It was incredibly annoying. He really couldn’t roll his eyes at them enough. When John pushed the point, Teal'c and Ronon acted like they got it, really they did, _You need not repeat yourself; we understand that you do not want us to do this necessary thing, ColonelJohnSheppard_ , but the one thing they wouldn’t do was outright promise not to go hunting coyote.

John found that he was more than a little worried that they would quietly take off in the night while he slept, but he wasn’t sure if his worry lay in the fact that he'd have unleashed a pair of Dangerous Alien Warriors-From-Another-Planet-and/or-Galaxy on an Unsuspecting Countryside, or if it was more that it would hurt his feelings to be left behind. That was when he decided to do something he'd been avoiding thinking about since he first came up with the idea of renting the house in Lavvyan: John decided to drop in on an old friend.

He’d consult with a higher authority. An authority his posse might actually respect, as it was sadly obvious they did not respect him.

* * *

Back in the day, John had been best buddies with a guy named Dare Duggan, or "Double-Dog" as he’d been known at the time.

"A Double-Dog Dare is when you―" John began, but he was cut off by both Ronon and Teal'c:

"Yeah, I know, I saw _A Christmas Story_."

"Indeed. It is played many times on television during the Tau’ri’s winter holiday festivities."

John and Double-Dog had gotten into a lot of trouble back in the day, but oddly enough, it had almost never been John's fault. "Of the two of us, I was the sane, sober one, and it's gotta give you pause when I'm the one holding the other guy back."

To be honest, John didn't so much hold Double-Dog back as get out of the way after convincing him to wear a helmet.

The only reason John and Dare didn't have a juvie record was because Dare's father was the local Chief of Police, Sam "Peace of Cheleef" Duggan. It was a good thing he was police chief of a small, mostly-law-abiding town, because Sam wasn't exactly the sharpest pencil in the pencil box. Most of the crimes that got committed were of the minor-vandalism variety, and frankly most of them were committed by his own son, so they were generally very easy crimes to solve. If somebody liberated a truck full of painting supplies and painted the local water tower to look like a birthday cake for his girlfriend's Sweet Sixteen, or if somebody "borrowed" someone else's canoe and used it to toboggan down the side of one of the more mountainous hills after watching the Jamaican Bobsled Team do their thing in the 1988 Olympics, everyone pretty much knew right off who the culprit was. They probably would have been a little pissier about it if they hadn’t been laughing so hard.

Everyone had been astounded when, years later, Dare Duggan had gone to the police academy and returned to join Lavvyan's police force, eventually taking over his father's job as Peace of Cheleef...

“…um, I mean Chief of Police,” said John, old habits being hard to break. “We should go see him. Now.”

So John strolled into the Lavvyan police station, all cool-like, and did the manly buddy-buddy slapping of the back-and-insult thing two guys who haven't seen one another for a long time do, then he introduced Ronon and "Murray" as his good buddies who had come along on a surfing vacation with him. Ronon and “Murray” then explained the whole Coyote Problem to Double-Dog, who listened attentively.

John had been supremely confident that Double-Dog would shut The Great Lavvyan Coyote Hunt down a-bornin' so that they could all get back to basting the half-cow-on-a-spit that the little old ladies (and one elderly gentleman) were currently keeping an eye on out at John’s rental. He figured he’d get his posse’s disappointment squared away, then he’d get on with inviting Double-Dog and his family (and how awesome was it that Double-Dog Dare had a family?) to the party.

Unfortunately, John was brought up short when it became evident that the years had not taught Double-Dog a damned thing because he thought a coyote hunt was the best thing he’d heard of since that time he parachuted off the local water tower back when he was in high school. Double-Dog wanted to go on a coyote hunt, too.

"Well, damn," John said. He really hadn't counted on that.

Teal'c and Ronon were enthused: they each raised one eyebrow in their own versions of tumultuous acclaim. Then Ronon broke into a grin and slapped John on the back. “It’s gonna be awesome, buddy,” he said.

And so The Great Lavvyan Coyote Hunt was on, or would be once the half-a-cow was completely devoured and the party could be declared over. John entertained a momentary fleeting hope that General Landry would never, ever hear about it, instantly amended to a slightly more realistic hope that when the general did hear about it, he would understand the position John found himself in and forgive.

He was so screwed.

* * *

The party was a great success; you can't go wrong when a good third of the attendees are wearing bikinis, the beer is flowing like the healing waters of the Nile, and the steak is spinning on a big stick.

John’s neighbors dragged their picnic tables and beach chairs over out of their own backyards and everyone brought beach blankets, so nobody had to sit in the sand. Better yet, someone had brought a stereo system with them and there was actual beach-blanket-bingo-type dancing going on, the moon overhead functioning as a pale disco ball—thank God somebody had thought to bring music! Some of the teenagers had started dragging debris and bits of dried-out flotsam down to the shore as the sun went red and sank into the ocean, and now a medium-sized bonfire was burning in the night. You had to hand it to Californians; these people were practically professional beach-party throwers.

If McKay had come with them instead of spending his leave with his sister, John would have called him "Frankie" and McKay would have totally gotten the joke and pointed out that that would make John "Annette", and they'd have laughed their asses off while Ronon rolled his eyes and Teal'c looked on, stalwart. Anyone within listening distance would have assumed they were married.

As he watched Double-Dog, his wife, Judy, and their two sons at the party, John did a compare-and-contrast with his own crappy childhood; his childhood coming down on the deficient side, of course. The apple not falling far from the tree, Double-Dog had married a California Surfer-Girl type, who totally reminded John of Dare’s mom, Mrs. Peace-of-Cheleef Duggan. The kids had taken after Judy in that they, too, were tall, tan, and tow-headed, but they'd taken after their father in nuttiness, as they were busy trying to convince him that they should be allowed to accompany the adults on The Great Lavvyan Coyote Hunt. Possibly as caddies or standard-bearers, John wasn't sure which.

Concord, the younger kid, was only a couple years younger than Double-Dog had been when he'd been John's best friend, and the goofy way he looked and acted brought a lump of nostalgia to John's throat, but Ripley, the older kid, would be heading off for college in the fall, and that just made John feel ancient—without the capital "A".

"Awwww, c'mon, dad! Let us come with you guys!"

"No! Now settle down! Look, you're upsetting your mother!" Double-Dog said, as if that particular guilt-trip had ever worked on him when he was that age. Judy had sucked down four Mai Tais in three hours and, if anything, seemed to think that what she was referring to as “that Kill-the-Coyotes Thing you idiots are going on” was hysterically funny rather than worrisome.

"Uncle John, make dad let us go!"

"Are you kidding me? _I_ don't even want to go on this stupid coyote-slaughtering expedition, why would you?" John cracked open another beer, figuring he was going to need it.

Dare got a worried look on his face that John recognized from Sam Duggan’s face, and his kids apparently knew the look, too, because they started edging away. Dare grabbed his sons by the wrists and set them down on a pair of lawn chairs. They stayed put, but they didn’t look happy about it.

“Hey, you know what? This is a teaching moment, guys. Me and Uncle John and Ronon and Mr. Murray aren’t doing this for fun. This is an example of nature out of balance. I was reading up on line, and read that when the local coyote population gets too big for their, you know, environment, and they probably ate up all the rabbits and field mice and stuff, and to get food, they’ve been forced to come into people’s backyards and stuff. Population pressure made them lose their fear of man. Next thing you know, it won’t be pets they attack, it’ll be babies and little kids. And when the population gets too big, coyotes get sick with mange and viruses and rabies! It’s like nature sees a problem and starts taking them out! So we’re gonna put a dent in the population and give them back the fear of man that’ll keep them out of the town’s backyards and off our streets. Bonus points because the ones that are left will be healthier. Good for them, good for us. You got that, guys?”

The kids nodded.

A little rambling, but a pretty good impromptu presentation on Dare’s part, John thought. Even Teal’c looked impressed, if John was reading him correctly. Ronon muttered, “It’s also fun,” but only John heard him.

John remembered that Peace of Cheleef Duggan had been a pretty good father; much like his son had turned out. If you could say one thing about Sam Duggan, it was that he had genuinely cared about kids. Unlike Patrick Sheppard, Sam had taken a keen interest in his kid's well-being and (sometimes insane) extra-curricular activities, but he’d also let Double-Dog be himself and make his own mistakes.

As a young cop, Sam had worked on a child-abuse task force and had come up with a kid-friendly program that taught kids how to recognize and protect themselves from sexual predators. It had been one of the first of its kind in the nation and had gotten Sam a lot of press and political attention, eventually propelling him to the top of the local anthill and making him Police Chief, even if he was a pretty mediocre cop in mostly every other way.

One side-effect of this success was that every now and then, John and Police Chief Duggan would be hanging around on the street or at the Duggan residence, commiserating about whatever latest disastrous adventure Double-Dog had taken part in, and suddenly Sam would get this look in his eye of a great and terrible worry, and John would say, "Oh, here we go again!", because Sam seemed to think John was some sort of catnip for predators who went after little boys.

"Shep. Yer a good kid. A real good kid."

And John would open his eyes real wide and say with complete insincerity, "That's very nice of you to say, sir!" and start edging away.

And Police Chief Duggan would grab his wrist and yank him back, saying, "Now listen to me. This is very important—a man comes up to you on the street and says, 'I need your help, young man! My kitten escaped from her carrier in my van and is hiding under the back seat! If I hold the seat up, could you reach under there and grab her for me?' So, what would you do if that happened?"

Being a smart-ass, John would of course take the opportunity to screw with Police Chief Duggan's mind a little and say, "That poor kitten! I'd have to help save it!"

And Police Chief Duggan would look as if the weight of the world was on his shoulders as he explained why getting into the van was a bad idea, and John would point out that he was sixteen, not six, and he wasn't stupid enough to get into some strange guy's van, even if Police Chief Duggan did seem to take him for a moron, which would end the conversation—until the next time.

* * *

It was in the wee hours when the party started to die down and people started to peel off from the crowd to go home that John began to feel the not-so-subtle pressure from the others that it was time to go on a coyote hunt.

Judy hugged Teal'c, Ronon, and John, then kissed her husband on the tip of the nose, saying, "You can collect on the rest of that if you get home at a decent hour."

"What if you're asleep?"

"Start without me."

"MO-OM!"

As Judy shepherded her scandalized sons off in the direction of home, John began picking up bottles out of the sand for recycling in an attempt to put off the inevitable. Party guests had been doing some dirt-biking in the nearby hills that had John hoping the coyotes would take the hint and give the town a wide berth that evening, but he knew his luck was crap and coyotes that brazen would not be fazed by a little noise pollution.

Materializing behind John soundlessly, Teal'c said, "ColonelJohnSheppard, I believe the time has come to rid this community of its mongrel pestilence."

Ronon ambled over from where he'd been stamping out the last burning embers of the bonfire. "Finally."

Rooting around for the 223 caliber rifles and flashlights he’d stashed in the back of his S.U.V., Double-Dog said, or rather, yelled at the top of his lungs:

"Are we gonna do this? Or _are we gonna do this_!?"

"Yeah, I figured that was my choice," John said.

* * *

This is how John got his first taste of the sky:

He was walking down a quiet back street in Lavvyan a few weeks before his seventeenth birthday, sucking down a cherry coke slushie, just minding his own damned business, when a guy stopped him. The guy looked worried, his watery brown eyes on the verge of tears, his hands nervously grasping one another, but there was nothing otherwise particularly noteworthy about him. He said:

"Lissen, kid; can you help me? My puppy got out of his carrier and got under the seat in the back of my van. If I pull up the seat, d'you think you could reach in and get him out of there?"

John was so surprised to find himself in an after-school special written by Police Chief Duggan that all he could think to blurt out was, _"I thought it was supposed to be a kitten."_

Fortunately, when the guy lunged for him, he was ready, having received top marks in his self-defense classes—the classes all the kids in town had taken courtesy of Police Chief Duggan, regardless of their ability to pay. The perv's nose very obligingly smashed itself on the heel of John's right hand, his knee appropriately crunched when John kicked it, and he very accommodatingly fell to the ground with all the finesse of a dead trout when John grabbed a nearby trash-can lid and bashed him as hard as he could in the head with it.

"...now we're talkin' bout a galvanized steel trash can lid, the way they used to make 'em when we were kids, not one of those cheap plastic piece-of-crap garbage-can lids you see today," John told Teal'c and Ronon.

He wondered what he was doing telling these two warriors the truth; surely there was a more flattering story he could tell, because Ronon hadn't stopped laughing from the kitten line on and Teal'c looked strangely doting, as if John was one of his young Jaffa recruits who had done something adorably brave as opposed to an almost-forty-year-old military commander of a very important outpost who'd done something adorably brave a good twenty-two years ago.

"Then he calls my dad," Double-Dog said. "He actually pulls the wallet out of the guy's back pocket and takes a quarter out of it for the payphone."

"Hey, that guy owed me a slushie," John protested feebly, hoping nobody would ask what a ‘payphone’ was.

"Dad picks up, 'Hey, Shep; howz it goin'?' and John starts telling him about his run-in with his overly-friendly neighborhood child molester, and my dad freaks out and starts yelling, 'Get out of there, Shep! Run, boy, run!', and he jumps up and trips over his wastebasket, and almost knocks himself out on his desk." Double-Dog shook his head in fond despair. "He was okay, but he yanked the phone cord out of the wall when he fell."

"I had to steal another quarter and call the sergeant at the front desk. First I told her to send someone into the office to make sure Chief Duggan was okay, then I told her I needed an ambulance and a black-and-white—uh, a police car. The creep didn't wake up until the next day, with twenty stitches in his head. Plus, he found himself handcuffed to the bed rail."

"So it turns out the guy's wanted, like, up and down the coast, and there's a reward for his arrest. Which my dad makes sure John collects.”

"It was enough for flying lessons."

John also had to pay for Patrick Sheppard's signature on the contract with his attendance at a number of Sheppard Industries events wearing a suit and tie, but it had been worth it.

“It was a totally awesome bust!" nodded Double-Dog in appreciation.

Ronon blinked. “Hey, that’s the stupid way Sheppard talks! Guess you’re not the only one who talks that way, huh,” he turned an accusing look at John.

“Now, what did I tell you that time you made fun of that nice Marine from Alabama’s accent?”

“McKay told me you made up the whole ‘verbal tolerance’ thing. And you never explained, what does ‘y’all’ mean? Why does he have to say it that way?”

“It means ‘you’ and he’s from Alabama, that’s why he has to say it that way.”

“Why can’t he just say ‘you’?”

John had no answer for this, so he reminded Ronon that, as a joke, the Marines had been telling newbies who showed up on Atlantis that Ronon was an old surf-buddy of John’s that he met in Malibu, because he used expressions like “Awesome!” and “Whatever!” all the time.

“Face it; you talk like a Californian, Ronon. Just like us.”

Ronon’s eyes narrowed and, with a guilty glance at Double-Dog, he said, “I talk the way people from Fiji talk.”

“Ya, sure, you betcha. Hey, Double-Dog, did you know Murray’s from Nigeria? His tribal name is ‘Teal’c’,” John said in an off-hand manner, scoring another dirty look from Ronon.

“Yeah? Africa’s freakin’ killer awesome,” Double-Dog said, living the cliché.

They fell into silence for a moment as they closely examined some torn-up weeds for coyote spore, then someone gestured onward with his flashlight beam, and they all turned and plodded their way up into the scrubby hills, sinking into the loose, dry sand with every step.

It was a little like one of those man-cave team-building seminars that executive firms paid top dollar for their execs to experience, John thought, except nobody was beating on a beaded drum that was made in China or, god forbid, handing ‘round the old Talking Stick. Yup, just a bunch of manly-men, shootin’ the shit and defending random Chihuahuas from vile predation. They made a pretty good team, at that. He’d have ‘gated with them anywhere.

With a sigh, he tried to stop worrying about how Landry was going to make him pay for this and just go with the flow.

* * *

They slogged on for a bit, flashlight beams wavering back and forth across the trail like a scene from the X-Files.

“O’Neill is from a place called ‘Minnesota,’” Teal’c suddenly announced, startling John out of his reverie.

“Ooh, yah?” John said dryly, wondering if anyone would pick up on the joke. No one did, but he knew somewhere McKay was grinning even if he didn’t know why.

“Who’s O’Neill,” Double-Dog asked.

“He’s the Big Boss of all the bosses; the General,” John answered. “You’ll probably get to meet him later because he’s the guy we’re gonna beg for help when Homeland Security shows up. Isn’t that right, ‘Murray’ and Ronon?” he added. They ignored him.

“Apparently the words, ‘ya, sure, you betcha’ is a common phrase in the land of Minnesota, much as ‘freakin’ awesome’ is a common phrase in this place.”

“Yeah, that’s a Minnesota thing,” John confirmed. “Although now that I think of it, I’m pretty sure I was quoting Carter. She was my immediate superior for, like, a year,” he explained to Double-Dog. “Guess she picked that up from the general; she’s not from Minnesota.”

“Although the phrase sounds as if one is in agreement,” Teal’c continued, “I have noticed that, in actual use, it often means the opposite of what it says, or it is somehow specifically designed to annoy the recipient of the phrase.” Wow, the relaxed vacation vibe had turned Teal’c into something of a Chatty Cathy.

“I bet it’s a metaphor,” Ronon said. “To work with Earthers, you need two things: a high tolerance for metaphor and the ability to run fast when people start shooting at you. And a big gun. You need three things.”

“Uh, ‘Earthers’ are what we Air Force types call people who don’t, you know, fly,” John said to Double-Dog, which was a pretty good lie if he did say so himself.

“O’Neill also quotes extensively from a movie called _The Wizard of Oz_ , which he considers of the highest quality—it is his favorite of all films, if the amount of times he has quoted it is a measure. I have only recently thought to wonder, is this preference specific to O’Neill himself or is it, as you say, a ‘Minnesota thing’?”

“Pretty sure it’s a Kansas thing,” Dare said.

Turning his head quickly as if to scout out any nearby wandering coyotes, John was glad Teal’c couldn’t see his gleeful expression in the semi-dark; he never wanted a recording device so badly in all his life. John had no idea General O’Neill was a friend of Dorothy, as it were, but it made a lot of sense given what they all did for a living—anyone who worked for the SGC found himself perpetually “not in Kansas anymore.” Which begged the question:

“So, Murray, how many times has the general said, ‘I don’t think we’re in Kansas anymore’ over the years?”

Teal’c pondered for a moment. “I believe I lost count after the first several dozen times, ColonelJohnSheppard. We would wager amongst ourselves as to how long into the mission it would be before O’Neill would speak the phrase. DanielJackson almost always won the bet, but then he was generally of the opinion that O’Neill would say it sooner rather than later.”

John thought Doctor Danny was a pretty smart guy, and Carter was smart, but probably too nice to go all out mocking her superior officer. Then Teal’c said:

“I have seen _The Wizard of Oz_ many times as it is also a favorite of my team mate, ValaMalDoran. It is an excellent narrative. The costumes are also very good. But I much prefer _Star Wars_. I often wish there were musical interludes in _Star Wars_.”

That was so great John didn’t know what to do with it, so he just let it sit there, perfect.

As they wound their way deeper into the hills, John’s imagination wandered. McKay was definitely their Scarecrow; Ronon, the Cowardly Lion (after all, in the end, the lion who ran away turned out to be the bravest of them all); and Teyla, with her Wraith DNA, fit the role of Glinda, the Good Witch. Atlantis was, of course, the Emerald City. John wanted to make out Elizabeth as Dorothy, but resisted the choice when he realized that he, himself, might actually make a better stand-in for Dorothy than she ever would. He was wracking his brains to come up with a decent stand-in for the Tin Man—Lorne? No. Zelenka? No, but Zelenka would make a great munchkin or, even better, flying monkey—when his thoughts were interrupted by Ronon picking up the coyotes’ spoor.

Of all of them, Ronon was the best tracker due to having to hunt game in order to survive for seven years on the run. Earlier that day, after some discussion, it had been revealed that although Teal’c had on occasion hunted for sport, as a leader in Apophis’ Jaffa army, he’d never been expected to provide food for it. He’d had his subordinates hunt game, or food was provided by Apophis’ many farms. John had been surprised; he’d never thought about the specifics of Teal’c’s background; he just had this vague hunter-warrior ideal in mind whenever he thought of Teal’c.

John knew that Ronon’s grandfather had started teaching him how to hunt when Ronon was only five or six. It made John’s domesticated turkey-slaughter aiding-and-abetting seem like literal child’s play in comparison.

As the most experienced, Ronon fell naturally into the role of leader and teacher. He held up his hand, and everyone else stopped in their tracks.

“Pay attention to the direction of the wind,” Ronon said quietly. “Pack-hunters have a highly developed sense of smell. You place yourself with the wind straight in your face or, better, with a crosswind. The pack will try to circle downwind to gain the advantage, so what we want is a crosswind and an open area downwind, along with enough moonlight to see what might be circling.”

The moonlight seemed plenty bright to John. He figured that as long as the clouds stayed away, nothing would get past them unseen for a couple of hours yet.

“You start out by asking where they’ll come from.” They all looked around, even Teal’c. Ronon continued, “Pack hunters chase down their prey, but scavengers like these coyotes will try to keep their energy consumption down. Living among humans, they’re not afraid of our scent and will use human-made trails or an old road. The footing will be easier than coming through tall grass and make less noise than coming through dry brush.”

In that moment, the whole situation became very real, and a shiver went down John’s spine when he realized he was hearing the voice of Ronon’s grandfather, coming to them from a score of years and billions of miles away. A man who had died tragically of the same parasite that almost took out McKay, a man John felt he might have called friend or mentor. And suddenly John didn’t give a good god-damn what General Landry might have to say about it.

“You,” Ronon said, directing Dare, “Stand downwind, there. If you take a position near the bottom of the dune, Teal’c can move to the opposite side, on the look-out for everything above us. Sheppard, where you are, that’s a good place for you. We’re trying to stake out a place where any one of us can see the pack approach, even if they’re hidden from the rest. Some of these little pack-hunters are so damned clever; they’ll sneak up on you from behind and leave without you ever knowing they were there, until you see their spoor come the morning’s light.”

They moved into position like a team, but when it finally went down, it went down quick and a little crazy. One minute John was enjoying a warm breeze on a moon-lit California night, the next minute, a pack of scrubby, angry-looking brindled yellow dogs came pouring in from the southern dune, exhibiting none of the finesse Ronan had credited them with. The pack yipped and barked and nipped at one another, showing absolutely no fear of the four humans ranged across the landscape, right up until the moment the team opened up with their bush rifles.

Given the circumstances, John figured it would be sheer luck if one of them got the leader of the pack, but in the end, one of the six corpses on the ground was unmistakably the flea-bitten old coyote that had tried to take out Princess Butterpat IV earlier that day, what felt like a million hours ago. The survivors milled about in a panicked swarm, then disappeared into the dark, yipping in terror.

Grimly checking the killing field for signs of life that would have to be put down, John hoped the new leader would be wary enough to keep his pack out of people’s backyards for a few years, because he sure as hell didn’t plan on doing this again any time soon.

“Don’t stand too close,” Ronon said. “These guys don’t look too healthy. And they’re lousy with small insect parasites that’ll jump off when the bodies cool.”

Everybody took a step back.

“Damn! What are we gonna do with the bodies? We can’t leave them lying around; kids dirt-bike in these dunes.” John knew he’d never really mastered the art of thinking things through completely, like that time he’d blurted out his revelation that he was the proud owner of a fleet of invisible planes and Rodney had spent the next two weeks calling him Wonder Woman. It hadn’t occurred to him that he might have to spend the rest of the second night of his vacation digging coyote graves until the wee hours.

“Don’t sweat it, Shep; I got a friend who’s the local contractor for road kill out of the D.O.T.; I’ll call him first thing in the AM to come pick ‘em up.”

John shot Dare an incredibly grateful look, then narrowed his eyes at Ronon and “Murray”. “Please, please tell me you guys don’t want their skins or something disgusting like that.”

Ronon shrugged. “Not good eating. And their fur is kind of really, really...,” he made a face and waved a hand at the bodies, “...gross.”

“Indeed, ColonelJohnSheppard; at this moment I am more interested in making a foray to that 24-hour diner of the ‘retro’ variety located on the California highway for some steak-and-eggs, as befits a warrior at the end of a successful quest.”

John thought he might have fallen a little in love with Teal’c in that moment because he’d only nibbled at the beef-spinning party earlier that evening, and a steak and eggs reward sounded like manna from heaven.

“Time to call it a night, then,” John said, casually resting his rifle on his shoulder. “Dare, you with us on our quest for steak-and-eggs?”

“Nah. My wife is waiting for me and, well, you know... I’m pretty sure I have a reward coming to me, too.”

John held up the hand not holding the rifle on his shoulder. “‘Nuff said. Seriously. Enough said.”

“Ha! Same old Shep. Never change, Sheppard.”

They were slogging up the side of a sandy hill in the general direction of John’s rental house when suddenly a growling blur of fur came flying out of nowhere, straight at John’s face. He threw up his arm as an explosion went off to his right, and the blur coalesced into a yelping ball of flailing limbs that bowled him over, simultaneous to a flashback of Elia’s attack slamming into him. His breath stuttered in his throat and he scooted backwards from where he’d fallen, away from the coyote snarling in its death-throws.

A hand grasped his upper arm and pulled him to his feet. Ronon, of course. He held the gun that had taken out John’s coyote attacker in his other hand.

“Holy shit! Holy shit! What-the-fuck?” Dare said, almost as shaken as John. He looked around as if another furry missile was about to be launched out of nowhere. “You okay, Shep?”

“This is not an auspicious occurrence, PoliceChiefDareDuggan,” Teal’c said. “Silence, for a moment, is necessary.”

Silence wasn’t very silent out there in the dunes; the cicadas had started up again almost immediately after the sound of gunfire had faded and a night-bird called to its mate off in the direction of the road. Somewhere behind them, the vast Pacific Ocean rolled into the beach with a distant and ever-present white-noise murmer. John forced himself to calm as he’d done on countless missions, regulating his gasps to even breaths, his heartbeat slowing, until he could hear something besides the pounding in his ears.

The men stood in the moonlight like statues, then Ronon said, “There!” and Teal’c nodded, setting off in the direction Ronon had indicated.

“Oh, fuck! Why did it have to be puppies!?” John said in despair. _That’s just great, John_ ; he thought to himself; once again he found himself handily pulling defeat from the jaws of victory.

They were cute in the way that all baby animals are cute, with shoe-button eyes and rounded, fluffy cheeks and foreheads; but they were not cute in the way they growled viciously, their tiny brindled bodies grinding into the sand as they tensed to leap if the slightest move was made in their direction, their little ears set back in a show of belligerence. Two feral coyote pups, who were having none of this. _Shit._ “She was just defending her god-damn puppies.”

“We cannot leave them, ColonelJohnSheppard. They are too young to be on their own and will die of thirst or be ripped apart as prey.”

“Yeah. Yeah, I get it.” John made to pull up his rifle to take care of the problem, but Ronon stopped him.

“I’m the master of the hunt, it’s my responsibility.”

John would never know if he’d have insisted on doing the deed himself as senior officer in attendance or if he’d have weenied out, as squeamish as one of the genteel Earthers Teal’c had shown contempt for earlier that day, because Ronon took his shots as fast and accurate as when he’d taken out the pups’ mother. Before John could find the words, the problem was gone.

This is why John almost never tells stories about his life; they so often end with, “...and then we killed them all.”

* * *

The next day, life goes on, like it almost always does, and John found himself back on his deck chair, sunglasses on his face and chilled drink in his hand.

Outside the fence, the wide expanse of beach was awash with rugrats; Ronon and Teal’c were busy giving self-defense lessons to Double-dog’s kids and their friends and the kids were all fake-punching one another and throwing one another down onto the sand. It reminded John of the self-defense lessons he took when he was just a kid in Lavvyan all those years ago—the same self-defense lessons that had allowed him to take down the perv, which paid for his first step on his way to his future. Yeah, it’s a real Circle-of-Life moment! Sadly, not his first Circle of Life moment in the past twenty-four hours, but at least it's a happier one.

A half-hour later, about the time a dozen shrieking, laughing kids started tossing one another into the water instead of the sand and Ronon had thrown a bucket of sea water at Teal’c, who promptly picked him up and threw him into the water, _(awesome!)_ , John was not a bit surprised when Rodney showed up uninvited, just in time for lunch.

Sweating under an unseasonably heavy overcoat and dragging a wheelie-bag through the scrubby brush, a computer case tucked under his arm, he stomped in via the back gate with a black cloud over his head, bitching about crappy hosts who didn’t answer their front door bells. "It's like a United Colors of Benetton ad back here," Rodney said, throwing his belongings down, stripping off his coat, jacket and tie, and dropping like a sack of meal onto a deck chair. “Must you all be so freakishly attractive?”

Turns out that old saying about house guests and fish smelling after three days is true, Jeannie got mad and threw him out... okay, it took six days before she actually threw him out, but according to Rodney, she’d become particularly mean on the morning of the fourth day.

John changed the subject: “Listen; don’t touch the peachy frozen stuff in the glasses in the freezer: it’s got orange juice in it.”

Rodney stared at him.

“What? They like Fuzzy Navels, what can I say?” John quietly put his own sunrise-colored drink on the ground on the side of the chair away from Rodney.

“Despite my admiration of your nefarious plan to turn two of the scariest warriors in two galaxies into girl-drink drunks, I’m having a beer.” He snapped his fingers at John, so John, being a good host and not crappy at all, got up and got him a beer.

Rodney wanted the dirt on what had been going on when he was in Canada being tortured by his sister. “Spill it, what did I miss and should I be sorry or relieved I missed it?”

“Rodney, it’s not fair; they’re ganging up on me and making me do stuff I don’t wanna do.”

“Well, of course they are. They’re the irresistible force, and the only time you’re an immovable object is when there’s an actual irresistible invading force involved.”

“I’m on vacation, I shouldn’t have to be the immovable object,” John whined.

“Hey, do you think we can use Teal’c as bait to get Carter out here? What? We never gave her a going-away party, don’t you feel bad about that? I know you like Carter, she’s the only superior officer you never wanted to punch in the face even once.”

“You’re an idiot. Speaking of parties, you missed a big one last night, but you also missed having to wander around in the dark and shoot coyotes, so I’d say you came out even on that one. We can always throw another party, but I’m not letting anyone shoot anything until we’re back home. I’ll introduce you to an old buddy of mine from high school who went coyote hunting with us; believe only about fifty percent of whatever he says about me. Sometimes he likes to tell people I did the stupid stuff he did; I swear I didn’t. It was always him.”

Now that Rodney’s here, John’s pretty sure that between the two of them, they can stand up to any more shenanigans that the other two (plus Dare) might want to get up to. Unless of course Rodney sides with them—oh, jeez, John hopes to hell that Rodney doesn’t side with them. Rodney has a Mr. Wizard side that could be dangerous under the circumstances.

Dripping fresh from the ocean, Ronon hopped over the fence, said, “Hey, McKay,” and proceeded to shake his sopping-wet dreadlocks all over his two teammates lying supine on their deckchairs in the warm California sun. Result: screaming and foul language, which was of course exactly as John’s bratty baby brother-from-another-planet had planned it.

Ronon snorted and yanked his towel out from under Rodney. “‘Clean your clock’, what does that even mean, McKay? It’s kind of pretty. Sometimes I hate your language, but then you come up with stuff like that.”

Just another day in the life of John Sheppard, Explainer of Metaphors and Idiomatic Expressions to alien life forms. John will take it.

 

The End

**Author's Note:**

> Warning: Animal death. It’s a story about hunting with Ronon and Teal’c, so that's to be expected. I tried to handle it tastefully and with serious intent. There’s a reference to kids taking self-defense classes and a child-molester being arrested, but no scenes of or references to any actual molestation. I feel pretty much anyone can safely read this story without being triggered, but Your Mileage May Vary. Be safe and don't read if you have the slightest worry.
> 
> John’s flashback about the turkeys is a story that JFlan told about his childhood at a convention a few years ago, to be found here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nfjFbeS4jBU I wanted to make it Sheppard’s story, too, because it kind of explains a lot.


End file.
